研究班番号【 53 】

Japanese Convenience Store Growth
Due to Product Distribution and Management
Ryota Hosoya, Rion Kouda, Soma Koyachi

1. Introduction
In Japan, there are a lot of convenience stores in the city. Sometimes, we can see severalof the same convenience store in the same neighborhood. Our team made the hypothesisthat the reason convenience stores have developed is related to the development of productdistribution and management.

2. Research
We conducted a literature survey and fieldwork at Seven-Eleven Osaka District
Secretariat.
(Survey 1) Investigate the product management performed by Seven & I Holdings.
(Survey 2) Investigate the distribution system of products.

3. Results(Survey 1)
Most of convenience stores use a point-of-sale (POS) system in order to manage products.
POS systems keep track of when a product was sold, to whom it was sold, and how many
units were sold.
The company manages individual items using a POS system to improve sales efficiency.
The figure below shows that a sharp rise of sales coincided with the introduction of POS
systems.

Introduction of POS

systemhttps://www.sej.co.jp/company/suii.html（Survey 2）
The company adopted the dominant strategy, which aimed at opening many stores in alimited area in order to increase market share and achieve a monopoly.

Many stores of thesame type are opened in neighboring areas, which leads to improvement of delivery
efficiency. For example, it takes long time to send products to the stores if they are located
far away each other, but delivery trucks can deliver products to many stores more efficiently
if they are located in a limited area.
In addition, this situation also had the advantage of supplying more goods when the big
earthquake occurred in Tohoku. Convenience stores also provided home delivery services
which are very useful for the parts of the country where depopulation is progressing.

4. Discussion
Convenience stores sell fewer products than supermarkets and do not have bigstorehouses. However, convenience stores need to keep all their shelves filled with products.
Supermarkets sell more products and have big storehouses, as such a POS system is moresuitable for convenience stores than supermarkets.
Convenience stores use franchise management and the density of stores is large in one
area. Compared to convenience stores, the size of a supermarket is large while the density ofsupermarkets in one area is low. Using a dominant strategy to have many stores in a small
area is more useful and beneficial for convenience stores.

5. Conclusion and outlook
Unique product management with the POS system, distribution system, and thedominant storefront strategy contributed to development of convenience stores. However,we think that there is room for the further improvement of these systems. For example,
dominant strategies may reduce the sales of the stores which are close to each other.
Further research to maximize profits and efficiency of product delivery service should bedone in hopes of also increasing customer satisfaction.

6. References『コンビニエンスストアの知識』木下安司『トコトンやさしい流通』鈴木邦成

2011/9/16 日経文庫

2006/9/1 日刊工業新聞社『トコトンやさしい小売・流通』鈴木邦成

2017/10/27 日刊工業新聞社『商品開発体制に与えたコンビニ台頭のインパクト』小川進

2003/12 神戸大学

https：//www.sej.co.jp/company/suii.html
https://www.sej.co.jp/company/enkaku.html
小川進（2003）「商品開発体制に与えたコンビニ台頭のインパクト」，『国民経済雑誌』188（6）